THANK YOU all for your comments and suggestions. I'm replying to this thread because many of the details are already described above. The short of it is that our bengal kitten is pooping/peeing outside the litter box. I see now that my original post was exactly 2 months ago, but I'm sorry to say that we STILL have the exact same problem, despite multiple attempts to change the environment (which I'll list below). We are getting desperate here, so I'm posting again in hopes that I can get some more suggestions! The good news is that in 1 month we'll be moving to a new house, so we *may* have a unique opportunity to change this behavior. Boy, I wish I knew of a cat behaviorist around here!
Contrary to my original post, we now do not believe that it is a territorial issue. My best guess currently is that she tries to find a location with the least activity to do her poop. Anyway, let me step back and fill you in on what we tried:
- got tested and treated (twice in a row) for giardia. Seems to be totally cleared for a month now. Poops are no longer diarrhea (thank goodness). - we restricted her and her sister (same litter) to a smaller part of our house with no carpets: hall bathroom, hall, and front entry area (no access to kitchen, carpeted bedrooms, carpeted living room). There the cats have access to a cat tree, preferred sleeping location, toys, and two litter boxes. - We started with 4 litter boxes, but on the suggestion that that might be too many, we reduced (by seeing which ones were not used) the number to 2. Both used to be next to each other in the front entry, and now one is in the entry and one is in the hall bath. (We thought there might be too much activity in the front entry.)
So here is what happens -- when she and her sister are confined to this (quite large) uncarpeted hall/bath/entry area all day when we are at work/school and all night when we are sleeping, there are NEVER any accidents and BOTH cats pee/poop just fine using these litter boxes. If we confine them to this space right after feeding (2x/day ~ 6am and 6pm) to allow time for them to digest & poop, again -- NEVER any problems. After they have pooped in the box while being confined, we can open up the doors to the rooms that we are in and they will hang out with us and play quiet happily, NO PROBLEM. In fact, all day long on the weekends when we are home, they are in the same room with us without issues.
So what is the problem? The pooping outside the box only happens when we allow her access to our rooms right after she has eaten. She will walk right past a clean litter box (the *same one* that she uses all the time when confined to that space), and walk into the living room and poop right there on the carpet, sometimes right in front of me. It's usually mostly on carpet, but a few times it has been on hardwood, tile, and bedding. Two times she has gone into my son's room when he's studying at his desk and peed on his bed right behind him.
Arrrrgh!
As I mentioned, we may have a unique opportunity in a month when we move to a new house. Most of the rooms will be hardwood (not sure if the carpet is more attractive to her). The following is out 'plan of attack', but I don't know if it will change anything. I'm open to suggestions!
- in the day when we are not home, confine both cats to the garage with toys, food/water, 2 litter boxes, and a nice big sunny window (which they seem to love) - keep food and litter boxes in the garage (that's their home base), without any boxes in the house. - confine both cats to garage for 1 hour (??) after they eat. - install kitty door from kitchen to garage which can be 'locked' during these times. - let them have free roam of our house in the evenings when we are at home (after 1-hr post-eating) and also when we are sleeping. (Kitty door will be functional at this time so they can come & go to the garage).
Do you think this will work? Is the "free roam" idea in the evenings totally absurd? How do we train them to use the kitty door, and will they be confused when sometimes it's 'locked' and sometimes not?
All suggestions welcome! My husband is ready to give this cat back to our breeder (and keep her sister), so I really need to figure this out soon. I don't want to give her back and I don't want to separate the two sisters.
Thank you!
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